Hybridization
by theshypen
Summary: She can't stay away from him, he can't let her go. They are The Hybrid... Face The Raven fix-it, possibly adventures from Season 10 - but of course featuring Clara alongside the Doctor... In one form or another.
1. Ready

_**Hi, I still cry when I re-watch the three last episodes of S9, and I wonder what plans they have for Clara since they left her "alive" after all... But this story is a thing to fix my aching heart and reunite them non-canonically (: Heaven Sent and Hell Bent happened just as were shown, but I'm cutting Husbands of River Song out of my story since I think this just works better without throwing the missus back into the mix. And Face The Raven maybe has a tiny crucial edit... Enjoy.**_

oOo

1\. Ready

He had lost people before. It always hurt, but somehow he seemed to always to forget just how badly. Her small figure stood before him now, the eyes larger than ever before. Small, and so fragile and precious, despite all her efforts to convince herself that she was strong and brave

He could not lose her.

So many times before had he saved her, had she saved him… They always fixed it. Even now, part of his mind was frantically looking for ways out. Thinking there had to be some solution he had not yet thought of. But another part knew that it was over. Knew that this was the last he would ever see of her, the next words the last ones he would ever speak to her. And there were so many things he should say to her. So many things he could say. Things he even maybe would say, given enough time.

But time was running away from them.

"Clara-" he began.

Further, he didn't get, before she had thrown herself into him in a hug.

"Everything you are about to say, I already know."

Her words made him lose what tiny trace of coherence he had managed to formulate his thoughts with. He couldn't help his arms rising slowly, grasping the small, precious body that held on to his. She was trembling.

"Don't do it now. We've already had enough bad timing."

Bad timing? His panicking thoughts flew to a memory of her old form in a living room, hands too weak to pull a christmas cracker without his help, a mention of an impossible man she could never have been with. They flew on, to an image of his elderly former self, hands too weak to pull a christmas cracker without her help, a head full of doubts on whether he had done the right thing abandoning her or not. It all seemed so long ago now. So far away from here.

A horrifying caw echoed from the streets outside. It pulled them both out of their trance, making her jump back and out of his arms. He saw her big eyes flash towards the door. There it was again, the fragility. Nobody had ever been as human as she was in that moment, he thought.

When she looked back at him, he also saw her determination. She had accepted this sudden fate. He hadn't.

"Don't run," he quickly begged. It was the only thing he found words for.

With the saddest smile, she leaned her head to the side. He smiled back, knowing that she knew him well enough to see that for once, he was wearing his soul on the outside.

"Stay with me."

"Nah," she answered, lighthearted until the very end, shaking her head as if it could keep the swelling tears away. "You stay here. In the end, everybody does this alone."

Her ability to even say something like this now, brought him over the edge. His painful smile disappeared, and he gasped for a breath.

"Clara-" he began anew, urgency in his tone, only to be cut off again.

"This is as brave, as I know how to be!" she said, almost whispering, yet he felt like she was yelling at him. "I know it's going to hurt you, but… Please… Be a little proud of me?"

At this point, he was all out of words. No part of him any longer held any hope, and nothing else in the room, in the whole world, existed at this moment, but him and her. She couldn't go. But she was going to.

Taking a deep breath, she raised her hand to touch his cheek, one last time. Her warm hand against his old, rugged skin, melted all the worries away too. He could only see her, here and now. Still alive. The smile that spread across his face was now a true one. How couldn't it be? She was here. Alive. Nothing else had ever really mattered, and certainly would never matter again.

He took her hand in both of his, and slowly as she watched, moved to plant the lightest of kisses on her fingers. When his eyes darted back to hers just after, he could tell that she had reached the limit of her bravery at last. Her tears betrayed her.

Another caw told them that their time was up. She let out one last breath, and moved away. Without another glance, she was out the door, leaving him standing there alone. Other people in the room didn't exist for him yet, maybe they wouldn't for a long time. They were extras. She was his only person, and she had gone.

The door didn't completely close behind her. A sudden urge sprung to him, to head out after her, to convince the raven to take him instead, or at the very least to be there by her side until the very end.

But his feet were rooted in place.

 _Nah. You stay here. Be a little proud of me._

He heard her scream, and it tore him into pieces. He felt absolutely nothing as Ashildr started initiating her mysterious teleportation. Even the threats he gave her felt like they were spoken by somebody else. There was nothing left to feel. Which meant, no matter where this transport would take him, he was ready.

oOo

She was ready. She knew where she had to go, and she was finally ready to accept it. Again.

It hadn't been many months before Ashildr had lost the initial excitement around traveling through time and space in an American diner - not even after they unstuck the chameleon circuit and could blend in for real. Sure, time travel was a thing she hadn't often had the luxury of enjoying, but considering how long she had been living for, and how much she had seen in these many billions of years, Ashildr - Me - simply couldn't find much joy in any part of the galaxies anymore. All that had driven her over the last millions of years, was the idea she clung onto, the idea that she surely would meet the most famous time traveler of all, at the end of all things. She had even made her way to his homeworld, to Gallifrey, and she had waited, and he had come. Now, there just wasn't much more left. After only four months, Clara had returned her to the end of time, to the last fading reality bubble in the universe, and they had said their goodbyes. Ashildr had smiled, and for the first time in so very long, she hadn't objected when Clara had used her viking name.

Just like the Doctor, Clara realized that she wasn't fit to travel alone in a TARDIS. Not to mention, the fact that she still lacked a heartbeat still freaked her out on a daily basis. This wasn't a permanent situation, her here, in this new TARDIS. This had been one last series of small adventures, just to stretch her time. But for no good reason, really. They had never encountered the Doctor, which she actually had found a bit surprising. Wasn't he basically everywhere at all times, by now? Maybe the universe really didn't want them to meet again.

Which was, of course, the whole point. They could never meet again. They had said their goodbyes - several times, even. What she was doing now, was riding on stolen time. It wasn't fair, it wasn't real, and it would end now. She was ready.

But it really wasn't easy, making herself type in Gallifrey's coordinates in time and space again. At the last symbols, she hesitated. Why? Maybe she just needed to get some peace of mind first. The TARDIS was nice in many ways, but sometimes it felt like being inside of a factory. They never did manage to figure out how to edit the interior design, as the Doctor seemed to do with his own old ship every now and then.

"I know we haven't known each other for long," she said softly, patting the white console board. "But I was hoping that you'd know me well enough by now to take me to a place where you think I could be happy."

The white TARDIS was quiet.

"Just anywhere, really. A planet, maybe. With a sunset. Some nice mountains. Happy people…"

Still no noise or groan from the sentient ship. Clara was honestly doubting that it was sentient at all. The old TARDIS had done all kinds of strange things, as if to make you realize that you were never quite alone onboard.

"Oh well," Clara sighed, and pulled a lever.

When she exited the doors, she found a magnificent orange sky, painted by a sun setting over mountains at the horizon. Music danced to her through the air, and turned her attention to a city, situated by the beach of a calm sea. Apparently, she was looking down at them from a nearby hill.

Feeling a warm, grateful sensation spreading in her, she turned to hug the TARDIS, before she slowly strolled down towards the settlement. No rush. She had all the time in the world - all the time between the heartbeat she was stuck in, and her very last.

There was clearly some festival going on. Despite the settlement looking small, there were many more people than expected there. The bigger streets were packed, everybody's attention turned towards the seaside. Clara made her way along the slightly less dense crowds in the sidestreets, until she reached a balcony overlooking a big square.

The music and singing came from the crowd, as they all were looking up at a stone statue, facing away from her in the very middle of the square. Must be a celebration of some old king, saint, maybe freedom fighter, she thought. Children were laughing, elders were closing their eyes and swaying to the music. A happy occasion, so at least not a war hero. It was all very atmospheric.

She closed her own eyes, allowed herself to become immersed in the world here. The world that would continue to spin and laugh, long after she had left. The world would continue, it didn't need her. She wasn't the Doctor.

"Friends, it is time we take a moment to remember the hero who gave his own life to make our happy future possible. The hero whom we have to thank, for absolutely everything."

A person in the crowd who seemed to be of special importance, had risen up to stand in front of the statue. She was wearing an open black coat, red linings gleaming in the sunshine. Clara lazily fastened her eyes on it as she listened together with the people.

"A silent minute, to honor the Doctor."

"The Doctor," the crowd echoed, before they all fell utterly, completely silent.

All that could be heard, was a loud gasp from a girl on a balcony.

oOo

The Doctor found himself in a tricky situation. The gem in his hand was about to irradiate half the planet, after which it would explode. He had maybe two minutes to think of some clever way to avoid it.

It had seemed like a good idea at first, to take this beautiful crystal from the Finthoran squad of criminal bullies and bring it back to the Yacagarua Kingdom from which they had stolen it. Apparently, it was a precious heirloom for the royal family and a symbol of bravery. But then, the Finthorans had abruptly left the planet, leaving the Yacaraguans to rejoice, and the Doctor highly suspicious. When he was suspicious like that, he tended to want to stick around, and so he had. It was only hours later, at sunset, that he had been awakened by an alarmed royal guard to find the crystal shining with a light that scared the locals. Its radiation levels had increased drastically, and a sonic reading told him that its structure was about to collapse in on itself in a way that meant sure doom for a good part of the Yacagaruan world. There wasn't even enough time to evacuate the city, yet he told everybody to run.

The citizens fled, and he made his way to the beach. He didn't run though, because he knew it wouldn't help. His brain worked overtime, testing every possible solution, which went very quickly as he found that there were none. He couldn't dull the radiation - had he been a local lifeform, he would have been fried already. Luckily, Time Lords were not so frail. Tossing it into the ocean would only mean a slightly bigger splash when the explosion came.

Basically, this looked like it was going to be his last sunset. Strangely enough, he felt quite alright with that. Very strange, he retorted to himself. Why would you be alright with dying? Well, he answered himself. What have I really got left to live for? I'm just a daft old man running around the universe in his box. There's not much point in anything anymore.

Perhaps if he swallowed the crystal, his Time Lord body and energy would absorb some of the force and make the impact on the planet smaller. Seeing as there certainly weren't any better options, he was just about to pop the pink little thing into his mouth, when an all too familiar noise reached him and made him turn around.

All he could see was a big rock, standing in front of him on the beach. The radiation must be driving him crazy. He opened his mouth again.

"I can think of a better solution than that," a voice came, almost making him drop the gem.

The rock now had a doorway, and in it stood a small brunette, arms crossed and a gentle smile on her face. He thought he recognized her, for a fleeting moment, before the dreadful sound of a distant cloister bell pulled him out of his memory walk. It came from his TARDIS, which he had parked on a hill outside of the city. Too far away from the palace, too far for him to reach and fly away somewhere he could safely dump the gem. Hence his distraught walk to the beach instead.

"Oi!" the girl called out. "In here, now!"

Without really being sure of what was going on still, but not being so keen on swallowing and explosive gem that he wouldn't try anything else, he darted forward and followed her in through the doorway, only to be more than moderately shocked by its white interior

"This is a TARDIS," he managed to say.

"And it is much more durable than your belly. Give it here, quick!"

The girl snatched the lethal gem from him before he could protest, and ran up to a wall.

"Wait! It's too dangerous for you to hold!"

"Nah. My cells tend to ignore most things that happen to them," she replied nonchalanty as she opened a hatch, flung the gem in, and closed it again.

Everything suddenly became strangely calm and quiet. The Doctor blinked.

"How long until it blasts?" she asked.

"Should be mere seconds," he breathed.

Just as he finished talking, a poof could be heard from the wall. The girl carefully reopened the hatch, and they both peered inside. The walls of the little closet were scorched, and all that seemed to remain was a pile of ash on the bottom.

"That's that, then. Lovely!" the girl said casually, as if they had just finished cooking a chicken for dinner.

The Doctor followed her with his gaze as she walked over to operate the central console. With some noise that didn't quite sound like his own TARDIS, they touched down somewhere, and the brunette once again opened the door and motioned for him to follow her through it.

Now, the sun was rising instead, instantly telling him that she had taken him through time. They were looking down at the city, from a hill. It didn't take the Doctor many steps outside, before he caught sight of a blue police box in the corner of his eye, standing only some ten meters away from where they were. And the city was fine. People were flooding the streets, flocking towards the seaside, where it seemed like there was great commotion around a statue in the center of a square the Doctor couldn't quite remember from the day before.

She was standing behind him, hugging herself slightly in the chilly morning wind. Her face was calm, and he realized that she had been watching him

"How did you know to take me here?" he asked.

"Look at them," she said, and meant the city below. "They're celebrating you. You sacrificed yourself to save them. You're dead, and they thank you for it."

"I'm not sure I'm dead," he responded, a bit baffled.

"No, you aren't. But they think you are. They will keep honoring your memory for centuries to come, making selflessness and bravery crucial parts of their society, because they believed that you sacrificed your own life for them in the past."

"Wait, is that a statue of me? How far into the future did you take me?"

"Only two years," the girl said with a sly smile. "I hope the TARDIS will forgive me for leaving her on her own for so long, though. I bet she misses you a lot."

There was something odd in her eyes when she said that. Not to mention the oddity of her saying any of this at all.

"Who are you? I can tell you are not a Time Lady, so how do you have a TARDIS?"

The girl shook her head, and her smile grew sad as the early sunrays played over her face.

"Keep saving people, Doctor."

"Sure, but I'm not even sure that I was the one who saved these now. If you hadn't showed up, they wouldn't have a city to raise a statue in, or even big enough rocks left around to craft it from. So who are you?"

Instead of answering, she merely turned away and stepped back inside the big rock that was her own TARDIS

"Wait!" the Doctor called out after her.

She hesitated with her hand on the door, about to close it. Still not looking at him, she said: "Just run, you clever boy. And forget me."

oOo

It took him hours of drifting aimlessly around in his TARDIS - who was all kinds of riled up after having been left on her own for two years - but he finally realized it. The girl had been wearing a white and blue dress, her hair put up in a bun. He had definitely seen her before. In Nevada. In a diner. A diner that had mysteriously disappeared, leaving his own TARDIS behind.

He had suspected it then, that the girl had had something to do with his history - diners didn't just fade out of existence like that, not even American ones. He had gone looking for clues about who had taken his TARDIS away from London, but since he wanted to stay as far away from Mayor Me and Trap Street as possible, it hadn't been easy.

But there really was one blatant option, one possibility, that he had discarded way too early because it had seemed too simple. Too easy. Now he wasn't so sure that it was, though. Because he had seen her again, heard her calling him Doctor, talk about his TARDIS as a she, and piloted a TARDIS herself.

The diner girl was Clara.

He knew the story, he had reconstructed events in his mind. He just lacked the background, the motivations and the emotions that caused all these events to make sense in the past. They all seemed jumbled and crazy to him now. He knew that he had lost his memory because of a Gallifreyan neuro block, but the reasons behind them wanting to use it were completely lost to him. Why would he choose to forget about somebody like that? She had seemed so clever and brave during their brief encounters in her blue dress. Now, he couldn't understand it.

And he wouldn't let his old self have the last say.

When the TARDIS had calmed down enough to let him operate her again, he set coordinates for his homeworld. Time to learn the truth.


	2. Leap Of Faith

_**Thank you for the nice reviews! I hope what follows will be to everybody's satisfaction. It's hard to interpret Clara's and Twelve's relationship over the last season. Not even sure there's one proper answer or label for it. It's definitely not the same kind of relationship he had with River though, or even with Rose (the pink and yellow human who made him want to be the Doctor again after the grim Time War) but at the same time much deeper and more desperately depending than Ten and Donna/Martha or Eleven and Amy, I'd say. What do you think? :)**_

2\. Leap Of Faith

The TARDIS didn't seem to want him to land on Gallifrey near the end of time. He chose not to take that as a warning sign of that whatever lay before him in his timestream was a bad choice. Eventually though, she seemed to cave in, because she landed him in the middle of an extraction chamber. Possibly – no, even likely – it was the very same chamber where he had pulled Clara out of her timestream, a mere moment before… Before the raven.

The Time Lords had definitely registered that he was there, because not a whole minute passed before guards were storming in around him and the poor lonely labworker he had encountered upon first exiting the TARDIS. By then though, the labworker had already given him what he asked for and answered his question, so all the Doctor did was waving goodbye to the guards with a smile, before shutting the blue door behind him and letting them see it fade away as he took off.

The question had been: "Has she come back?"

The answer had, after some initial confusion but eventual realization, been: "Yes."

From the Gallifreyan timeline he had aligned himself with, she was already gone. He leaned against the TARDIS console and pondered that thought, flipping a small device over in his hand. The thought of her dying didn't make him feel much. He knew it had happened, but many humans faced death every day. There was no strong emotion or heartbreaking pain that made him particularly regret hers. He stared intently at the item in his hand. Maybe there had been good reasons for him wanting her to forget him, or accepting that he would forget her.

He just couldn't for the lives of him understand what they'd been.

The only feeling that buzzed in him when he considered her, was that of curiosity. He had seen a face now, a voice to connect with events he knew had happened. And she had piloted a TARDIS and fearlessly resolved a planetary crisis where he had fallen short. Oh, he was so curious. How could he ever purposefully have let her go?

Curiosity killed the silver fox. He pressed the button on the neurunblock.

At first, nothing happened. He waited for a few seconds, before he sighed, thinking that it hadn't worked. The memories might not just be concealed, he might have repressed them so strongly himself that they were unretrievable-

Her smile.

Her laughter.

Her gaze.

Her bravery, until the very end.

He was struck by the flood of memories like a bullet train to his brain. Nothing like when they had slowly faded away upon using the neuroblock. The neurunblock was swift and merciless. If you so badly wanted to force your concealed memories back into existence, you'd have to take the full brunt of them.

The device clanked as it hit the floor, and the Doctor soon followed, sliding down against the railing, his knees failing him. For several minutes, he simply sat. Neither the universe nor the TARDIS around him dared disturbing him.

Then he finally drew a long, old breath.

"So that's why," he mumbled.

Slowly standing up, he had trouble keeping his eyes open. Not because they were drooping, but because wherever in the TARDIS he looked, he could only see Clara. Studying the bookshelves, drawing on the chalkboard, sitting in the jumpseat, or leaning on the console with adventure in her eyes.

If he would be honest with himself, he really hadn't expect to feel this much. She was a human girl – he had known plenty of human girls in his all too long life. Brilliant girls, even. Sarah Jane, his old, so old companion, the precious Jo Grant, the feisty Tegan, the fantastic Ace – he suddenly chuckled at the memories. The neurunblock had not only revealed the recently hidden tales. It seemed as if it had also refreshened his memory patterns altogether. The timelines into the past were clearer to him if he concentrated now, than they had been in a very long time.

He studied inwards how his path had strayed during the Time War, saw from three different angles how he proceeded to save Gallifrey from his own hand… And she was there. Clara had been by his side even then. No, wait. Earlier, even? The realization of all the details he was remembering now, shocked him.

He saw her running past his fourth version, saw himself drive past her in his third body, heard her desperately call out to his seventh form, felt her studying his fifth self helplessly. How had he never noticed the same girl touching his life before? He now distinctly remembered a soothing voice and a reassuring hand stroking his head when he was terrified in the empty Gallifreyan night, two millennia ago, speaking of fear and strength. He recalled the girl he had met in the TARDIS repair shop, the Time Lady who had realized what he was about to do, and decided to give him a good piece of advice instead of sounding the alarm.

Oh, Rassilon. She had told him which TARDIS to steal. Her echoes had been with him through his whole life. Clara Oswald had, as it turned out, shaped him in so many more ways than he had ever understood before.

And before, he had been willing to spend 4,5 billion years in his own personally tailored hell. What was he prepared to do now? A sad smile found its way to his lips. Of course, the answer was: anything necessary.

He piloted the TARDIS to a new location in spacetime, to which she obliged with unusual smoothness. She was on his side. Feeling his resolve strengthen, he pushed away the dread that came creeping, and exited the police box.

Everything was just the same as it had been. The sky just as dark, the air just as thick of horror. Screams could be heard, from people fleeing the streets ahead. He looked straight ahead, and saw his goal. Her silhouette from the side looked even thinner here than in his mind. Even more fragile than he remembered from this fateful night on Trap Street.

Resolve pushing away the dread. He needed to keep it up for a while longer. He could not give up now; never cowardly!

He strode through the narrow street with swift steps. Clara Oswald had just stopped in her solemn pace, mere meters ahead. His own pace quickened. Her terrified, yet brave eyes were staring at doom itself, somewhere in front of her where the Doctor couldn't see around the corner. A caw came from a distance, telling them that the raven was near. Time was nearly up. He fell into a sprint.

Only one chance, one chance to save her soul – and his own. She closed her eyes.

"Let me be brave..."

Her hands stretched out, as the final caw sounded, and he leapt.

oOo

The white room on Gallifrey was all too bright for the dark fate it would deliver her. The Time Lords had been very happy with her return, and been very accommodating during her last hour in this world. When she had finally stepped into the timerift again and retaken the exact spot they had plucked her from, she had time for one more false breath, one last sigh, before she closed her eyes once more. Bravely.

But she was so afraid, so very afraid. And for the last, split second before the Time Lords let go, she came to a horrible realization. She didn't want to go.

Time started running, the world kept spinning around her, the raven kept flying. And then, something big tumbled into her, making her stumble backwards and open her eyes wide.

Crouching, but still standing up, was him in his dark black coat, the hood hanging out on his back. For a second, it was as if everything had frozen again, then she let out a sob as her mind caught up to what her eyes told her.

"Doctor?!" she exclaimed and ran around to face him.

But his stare was blank, stuck in the absolute worst kind of fright. The kind of look somebody has on their face once they realize they are dying.

"Doctor, no!"

Suddenly, he screamed. A high pitched, heart wrenching wail that startled her enough to take several steps back, despite all of her soul yelling at her to stick by his side. When it finally ended, the Doctor fell backwards, his limp body colliding with the stone ground without a single reaction from him.

Clara didn't even wait a second before she was onto him like a magnet. The old skin was warmer than normal, warmer than his Time Lord physiology usually let him be. His eyes stared hollowly up into the air, unseeing. The street was completely empty, save for the two of them. A thousand thoughts were running amok in Clara's head, but she knew that she had to focus on being here in the present, and she channeled all of her consciousness into one main thought: the Doctor was not dead. He had saved her, against all odds, after all their tearful goodbyes. She refused to believe that this would kill him now.

Doing her best to focus, despite her worst nightmare lying beneath her and the heart hammering in her chest, she scouted the surroundings. Trap Street residents might come flooding back to see the result of what they believed had just unfolded now. Mayor Me might exit the building. She absolutely couldn't see them like this! Nothing she had told Clara ever hinted at her knowing that the Doctor would save her from the raven.

Ah, there it was. At the end of a narrow street between two buildings, the blue police box waited patiently. She mustered all her strength and dragged the Doctor's still body all the way to the TARDIS. Leaving him just inside the door, Clara stormed up to the console and made the time machine leave London. She didn't mind where or when she ended up, it really didn't matter the least. For a moment, she allowed herself to lean onto the control board with both hands steadying her, breathing as calmly as she could. The TARDIS made a squeaking noise, and Clara forced herself to look up.

"It's nice to see you too, old cow," she whispered.

Then, she finally turned around. He still hadn't gotten up. She had closed his eyelids, but he had not moved, had not shifted a millimeter on his own. His face was completely relaxed, his head against the metal floor where she had put him. So serene, like the sleeping form she had hardly ever seen of him.

She sat down a meter away.

"Doctor," she said softly. "You came back. I thought you didn't remember me."

No response.

"You jumped into the end of my timeline to save me…" She couldn't help letting out a sad chuckle, and stroke his head gingerly. "Remember when I did the same for you? Literally."

Not even a breath taken. Please, let him be asleep. In between breaths, strange Time Lord biology, anything. Anything but this.

"Doctor… You can regenerate. I've seen you die before. And look at us – we still did well. Please..."

A sob shook her, and she wrapped her arms around his form, putting her head against his chest. The TARDIS hummed carefully. Clara assumed the machine would have been blaring with alarms if the Doctor had actually been dead. At least that's what she told herself, a hope she was clinging to.

But minutes passed, and absolutely nothing happened. Hope faded and started to be replaced by panic. Anger, even.

"You can't leave me!" she decided to sit up and yell into his expressionless face. "Why did you even come back? Do you realize how selfish this was? Leaving me alone in this world, after I've made my peace with exactly everything, and you swanning off into the afterlife without a care in the world, in my place?"

But the lack of a reply, of any kind of reaction, immediately made her overcome with despair and grief instead.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed into his chest. "You really would break time itself if it could keep me alive and safe. You'd kill a man, you'd break your own rules… You were right. We are dangerous. I'm so sorry."

Losing Danny had been nothing like this. She had gotten news about his death and felt empty. Disappointed. When they had finally had a chance for a proper farewell, it had been a true heart ache, but most of all it had been bothersome. Tiresome, that they would even have to deal with it. They had deserved a happy life together, two happy humans in their happy home on Earth. When Danny died, Clara had felt a piece of her own humanity die with him.

It had been similar when her mother passed away. Her grandpa. Parts of what grounded her on Earth, of what made life here real and magical at the same time. Every time she lost somebody, she seemed to drift further away from who she had thought she had been. After Danny, she hadn't recognized herself for a long time… Not until the Doctor returned, and she re-discovered whom she truly wished she could be.

Clara Oswald, the impossible girl.

But to go on now, was what seemed impossible. The TARDIS groaned, as if it let out a long breath. Clara felt stiff. She must have been lying against the Doctor's chest for half an hour now. He was stiff too. She didn't dare to look up at his face again, out of fear that seeing his body be a shell, an organic mass without consciousness and life, would drive her mad. She would rather just stay here. Just stay like this, pretending that he was smiling down at her. Forever. It was easier.

"If you go, take me with you," she breathed, and longed for darkness.

Instead, she saw a light disturb her through closed eyelids, painting her field of view a bright red color until she blinked them open. The Doctor's hand in front of her, was glowing golden.

She gasped, jumping up. His face was glowing too. A shimmering, brimmering light that seemed to want to burst through the skin itself. The laughter she suddenly heard, was her own, a surprised sound that told her that she definitely had gone mad already. But the glowing grew intense, threatening to envelop her as tendrils of Gallifreyan energy started to reach out and lick the floor around the Time Lord. She backed away, and felt the TARDIS cringe, throwing her against the railing.

"No, not again!" Clara called out, steadying herself against the console as the time machine tilted to the side.

The Doctor's body started sliding down towards her from the entrance. He still wasn't awake, but the energy emanating from his body grew stronger, making a nearby side console spark as a golden burst hit it. She couldn't be close when this happened, no matter how overjoyed and bewildered she felt at the moment and matter how much she just wanted to keep holding onto him until he had finished changing.

His hand suddenly shot out, and grabbed a metal pole in the railing, keeping himself from sliding further. She watched his eyes fly open, as well as his mouth. As if screaming without a sound, his glowing face strained itself, until there was an ominous dark smoke blowing out instead. The smoke whirled above him, but it was as if golden cracks, bolts of lightning, shot through it. It exploded, and the TARDIS jerked hard again.

Pondering at the back of her head what that could be about, since it didn't happen last time she saw him regenerate, Clara felt the thud that usually indicated that the ship had landed somewhere tangible in time and space. The Doctor remained half seated, seemingly struggling against the strong power threatening to change his whole being, but he couldn't stop it.

Bursts started making more parts of the TARDIS spark, and the bookshelves behind Clara caught fire. Finally, the cloister bell started ringing, making Clara worried that regenerating after being hit by something as nefarious as the quantum shade might not work out after all.

Either way, she couldn't stay in here. The ship was starting to fall apart around her. She had to get out.

"See you soon, Doctor!" she called out.

Taking a deep breath, she then charged towards the doors, leaping over the Doctor on the floor, and exited. The doors slammed shut behind her.

She was standing on dirty ground, in what looked like a green forest in afternoon sunlight. Slowly, she backed away. Through the TARDIS windows, she could see an orange glow, pulsating rapidly. She hoped they would be alright, the Doctor as well as his ship. He would come back, in a new form of course, but they would get to know each other again, just like they had before. Maybe he didn't have all his memories of their time together, but she could tell him the stories. She wasn't losing him now, and she would not let him lose her again. The Doctor and Clara Oswald would be back the TARDIS.

That's when something hard poked her in the back, followed by angry shouts.

"Witch! Burn the witch!"


	3. Win

_**Hello! I realize very well that 'stepping in in front of a quantum shade', when the shade was quantum locked to Clara, might seem like a ridiculous way to save her. Why didn't he do it in the first place? Maybe he was too shocked to think of it during Face the Raven, and only realized the possibility of surprising the shade later on, when he had lost his detailed memories of her and could think more rationally. Either way, 'how' doesn't need to be the crucial part of this story, mostly 'why' he'd save her, is. I hope you can forgive my simplified fanfiction way to get there~ ;_; 3**_

oOo

3\. Win

"Witch! Burn the witch!"

It wasn't the middle of a forest. It was the outskirts of a village, and the villagers were not happy.

"What witch? Me?" Clara said as she turned around to face them with a puzzled look, hands in the air.

One of them, a wide but not very tall man, was pointing a pitchfork at her. Behind him, several more villagers, men as well as women, were cowering. They looked angry, but she could also tell they were very afraid of her.

The TARDIS stood behind her, flickering its light at them. They must have seen it phase into existence and freaked out about it. Was she on Earth? Perhaps in medieval times. From what she had heard, and partly seen first hand through some travels with the Doctor, humanity in these areas now was extremely wary of anything inexplicable that hadn't been officially sanctioned by a priest.

"You will be burned!" the wide man shouted.

"Okay, can we talk about that?" Clara said apologetically. "I have someplace to be, very soon."

She took the rough hands grabbing hold of her as a no, and was dragged through the village against her will. She didn't struggle overly much though. For one, she really wasn't strong enough to wrestle any of these men to the ground, and for two, she knew that it would be better to seem weak and wait for a good opportunity to be clever. Her and the Doctor always got through rough situations by being clever, not strong.

There was a pole in the middle of the settlement, the earth scorched around it. Apparently, they made common business out of burning young innocent women here. Clara felt disgusted at the thought.

As they closed in on the deathgrounds, more villagers flocked to the scene, even kids. They looked not quite as terrified as the adults, she noticed. Mostly curious. Typical children. She winked at one of them, with a sly smile. The boy blinked, surprised that the witch had taken notice of him, and stepped back to hide behind his mother.

She saw somebody fetching a rope. Alright, this was definitely the time to start being clever.

"So that's it? You think burning me will get rid of me?" she asked loudly, giving the men a disappointed look.

They merely glanced at each other, but proceeded to press her back against the pole.

"Lowly humans. You keep burning us, and you still haven't figured out that the only way to kill a witch forever, is to win against her." She rolled her eyes as if she couldn't believe their stupidity.

When the man with the rope stopped just in front of her, a curious look on his features, she actually couldn't believe his stupidity. "How do you mean, win?"

"Burn her!" a woman in the crowd called out.

"Well, go ahead and burn me first, it's been kind of chilly anyways. Please!"

The wide man from before stepped up to her and grabbed her by the throat. The others holding her stepped back and let go. She cringed under his hard grip, but did her best to keep meeting his stare confidently.

"What do you mean, win?" he said angrily.

"I'm a witch," she croaked. "I can handle flame - and can handle being thrown into a lake," she added, remembering that that might be something they liked to do as well and noticing the edge of the water of a lake not far from where they were standing now. "Obviously. You've been burning a lot of witches here, haven't you? But we just keep coming. It's because you're not properly getting rid of us!"

He dropped her, and she slumped against the pole, coughing, but straighening up as quickly as she could, even crossing her arms.

Some people from the crowd kept shouting for the men to burn her, but the wide one crossed his arms too. "Why would you tell us that? You are just trying to fool us!"

"I don't need to fool you!" Clara laughed. "You are so pathetically stupid, that I know I can tell you the truth and you still won't believe it. It is hilarious, and I am enjoying every second of this."

"Win, how?" the man holding the rope asked again, almost looking like fear overweighed his skepticism, which emboldened her.

"Win any way. In a game of riddles, for example," she claimed, hoping that she would actually be clever enough to beat a bunch of medieval peasants at that.

"You would just fool us!" the wide man said.

"Or a game of hide and seek! If you find me, you win, and I'll disappear forever, my witchcraft broken in pure shame!"

"Win in any way at all?" the man with the rope asked, once more.

"Yes, sure, any way," Clara said, waving dismissively at him. "Tell you what, why don't I count, and you all will go and hide? If I don't find you all within two minutes, you win!"

That should be enough time to sneak back to the TARDIS.

The rope man turned to the wide man. "We should win against her easily in a sword duel."

The crowd started laughing at that, and the wide man displayed an equally wide grin. "We will. What's wrong, witch?" he added, seeing her crestfallen expression. "Did we manage to fool you?"

Not sure what to say or do, Clara found any escape routes cut off by the crowd or the water, and watched as a very tall and strong looking young man stepped into the scorched area with her. He was wielding a sword, which sure looked rusty, but probably was lethal enough to break her witchcraft forever still. He tossed a similar sword over to her. It clanked as it landed at her feet.

The villagers were cheering and screaming the name of the young man, who smiled. He looked very stupid, Clara thought as she slowly picked up her weapon, but you probably didn't need much smarts if you had that much muscle.

… Or did you? A colorful memory of the Doctor drifted into her mind, of him defeating Robin Hood using only a spoon. And a spoonful of smarts. Her grip on the sword tightened, and she swallowed hard. She could do that too.

The fighter waved the sword at her, first teasingly a few times, to the crowd's delight. She kept stepping backwards to avoid it, and didn't mover her own metal stick much. Then he lunged at her more forcefully, and she had to take a leap to the side. He didn't protect himself very well – likely he wouldn't be considered a great swordfighter anywhere else, even if he was the best one in this village. When he missed, he took a step back and flashed her a big, threatening smile.

Resisting the urge to smile back, she tried to look as small and frightened as possible as she continued to back away. As the crowd chanted his name, mixed with 'kill the witch', her appointed executor gathered power again, and lunged. At what she desperately hoped would be the right moment, she turned on the spot. For a split second, their backs were against each other, before she bumped him with her rear, making him completely lose balance and fall face down into the water.

The villagers went very quiet, seemingly struck with surprise as well as fear of how on Earth she had managed to do that, before a couple of kids broke into laughter. Clara winked at the boy again, who couldn't help smiling back this time.

"I'll spare his life, since it's simply too boring to end it. Too much effort!" Clara called out to the wide man, who looked practically furious now.

What she didn't see, was her opponent rising up from the water again, raising his sword with even more fury. The final lunge came-

A loud clanging noise made Clara jump around. In between her and the fighter, stopping his sword with one of their own, was a hooded figure. In one swift movement, the hooded person maneuvered the sword out of the fighter's hand, before they kicked him in the stomach. Back into the water, the large young man went with a splash.

"Who-" Clara started, but a hand grabbed hers and pulled her along before she could say anything more. The crowd parted for them with gasps, and cheers from the children.

They ran, without looking back, and Clara tried to make sense of what was going on. The hand holding hers was strong, and the fingers long. They reached the edge of the village, and didn't stop until they reached the TARDIS.

"Hold on!" Clara said and halted, but the hooded figure pushed the door open and disappeared inside.

Her savior knew about the TARDIS and could enter it. Hope bubbled up inside of her, as the most logical explanation dawned on her. Her face shining up, she darted into the time machine as well, only to see that it was still doing quite of badly. The fire was put out, but bits and pieces had fallen from the balconies and ceiling, and a control panel looked distinctly exploded still. At the central console, with the back against her, stood the hooded figure.

"Doctor!" Clara called out.

He didn't immediately answer, but brought his hand up to his face. She still couldn't see it.

"Doctor, turn around. You came to save me, so you know who I am. And you are the Doctor. No matter what you look like, no matter how old you get, and no matter how many bodies you go through."

She walked towards him, slowly and apprehensively.

"I know you. I know your soul. You don't really change, not completely. And you came back for me, you just saved me twice in a row. I owe you!"

His hand dropped and a heavy sigh could be heard.

"I could never repay what you have done for me, Clara Oswald."

Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of the voice, and her eyes widened as he finally turned around and lowered the hood.

"I wish I would get to keep trying."

It was him. It was still her Doctor. The big, silver curls framed his face, the sincere bright eyes pierced her longingly. The eyebrows, for the first time, had no menacy at all about them. He just looked tired and sad.

She ran the last few steps and threw herself around his neck. Even before she felt his arms embrace her hard in return, she squeezed him as tightly as she possibly could, and felt tears start trickling down her cheeks, wetting his hoodie.

"Doctor… You didn't change!" she said and retreated just enough to be able to see his face, their noses a mere inch apart.

He gave her the warmest of smiles. "I can't leave you."

"Good! 'Cause you're not allowed to." Still clinging to his neck, and being very aware of him not letting her go either, she leaned her head. "But what happened to the quantum shade? I thought my death was locked in?"

"Oh, had it been anybody else, the shade would likely have ignored them and continued straight into you," he said, in an amused tone.

"But not the Time Lord," she said, beaming at him.

"No, luckily I was a bit too dense. Too much other kinds of quantum energy to pass through. I think that killed it, just before I started regenerating!"

Her smile fell at that, but he pulled her closer just so he could check her neck. "Yes, the numbers are gone. You are free!"

"Did you start to regenerate, but stopped half way?" Clara inquired, pushing him back so she could meet his eyes again, caught up on the detail he had mentioned. "Was the energy enough to kill the shade, and then heal you? Like how River healed you with her own energy that time, or when you made a metacrisis because-"

"Clara."

His one word stopped her, and she could tell that he was trying to calm her down, his eyes looking older than ever before. She didn't want to be calmed down.

"No, you tell me what you mean, now."

"I'm regenerating."

"But you're still you!"

His arms fell from her, and she felt as if the coldness of the world could reach her now.

"You're keeping your face."

"Clara."

"Stop Clara-ing me!" she said, taking a step back.

He blinked, slowly, before his hands came up to cup both her cheeks as he spoke very slowly. "But you know me. You know my soul. I don't really change. Not completely."

She bit her lip and fought back new tears. She had said those things when she thought he had already changed, but now that she had seen him again, seen her silver doctor alive and well once more, she had a hard time accepting that he would go after all.

"I can't leave you," he repeated from earlier. "Without saying goodbye."

"But you don't like goodbyes," she sniffed into the palm of one of his hands.

"It's the least I can do for you," he said. "Please… Please be here for me when I... Change."

The desperate undertone of his request made her tears break through her defenses. Her own hands found their way to his chest, trying to find something to hold onto, to grasp and not let go of. They settled over his hearts.

"Don't worry, daft old man," she sobbed. "I'm not going anywhere."

She leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek, just beside his mouth. She meant for it to be a light peck, but she found that she couldn't pull back. He was holding her face close, and shifted his head so he could kiss her cheek too. The softest, slowest peck in history. Her heart broke.

They moved so their foreheads touched, and she saw his eyes facing hers one last time, before they closed and squinted. His skin glimmered, and he let go of her head at last.

Refusing to let him leave or enter this world alone, Clara hurriedly reached around his waist and held on tightly. She felt his body tense and twitch, and then relax. A second or two passed, when she didn't even dare to breathe… But then, gentle arms carefully wrapped themselves around her body, and a chin came to rest on her head. She heard him draw a breath, and then sigh. Contentedly?

He was alright. He had changed, but he was alright, and he was here in the TARDIS with her. They were both alive and well, finally. She didn't care what he looked like. She never would again.

"Doctor?" she said quietly.

"Clara," came the soft reply.

His one word made her happier than she had been in a long, long time.


End file.
